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The Concept of Personality

PREFACE

The aim of this work is, in the first place, to make a comparison between the psychological insights underlying Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga and the Humanistic and Transpersonal psychologies developed by Abraham Maslow, together with their respective views on the various levels of human consciousness; in the second place, the intention is to pinpoint and reveal hitherto unexplored features in the works of both –a very extensive task of which only a little has been done–with reference to the writings of some other authors who have interpreted the psychological aspects of either Sri Aurobindo or Abraham Maslow.

In attempting to measure some of the basic postulates of these two thinkers it is essential to bear in mind that the psychologies of Sri Aurobindo and Maslow are founded on two different kinds of knowledge. Both based their psychology on authentic experience, but Sri Aurobindo expressed his insights largely in the language of Indian metaphysics, while Maslow used the Western empirical approach, struggling with the language of science.

Maslow’s metaphysical assumptions do not go beyond the intellect; they are based on speculations about the ultimate reality and have only limited spiritual value. For Sri Aurobindo, it is only by going beyond mind that each of us can contact and know the ultimate reality; only spiritual intuition and experience can reveal the nature of truth. Intellectual thinking, as an instrument for expressing the nature of truth, comes in only secondarily, as a judge of generalised statements drawn from supra-intellectual experience.

Throughout this work we are dealing with two different but often overlapping philosophies, and a crucial element in this comparison is the language that each employs. It is not immediately evident at any given point whether an apparent similarity or opposition in their views is a matter of ideas or simply of terminology.

Sri Aurobindo, born in the 20th century and educated in the classical tradition of the occident as well as self-educated in the tradition of his native cultural heritage, employs the English of the intelligentsia of his time supplemented by the specific terminology of the Hindu tradition, sometimes in the original Sanskrit and sometimes in various translations.

Maslow, on the other hand, although he had read a great deal of eastern thinkers, was a citizen of the United States of America, where the development of language was diverging from the British mainstream. He thus employed a syntax and nomenclature which was far more idiomatic, colloquial and immediate in its impact than that of his predecessors in the field of psychology: his language had almost nothing in common with the language of Sri Aurobindo, classical scholar and mystic seer in the Hindu tradition.
It should be emphasised here that this thesis is not a comprehensive study of the complete works of the two thinkers, but rather a critical survey of some of their points of agreement and divergence; care has been taken not to lose sight at any point of what is essential in their respective visions.

In the first chapter insight is gained into the personal roots of the visions of both thinkers, and an attempt is made to trace the origin and influences of their views. Analysing their visions reveals as much about their individual lives as about their theories. The prevailing philosophical assumptions characteristic of their respective cultures and historical traditions as well as personal factors all contributed to the development of their ideas. Many of their ideas and visions express the “Zeitgeist” or the mood and spirit of a particular development of their time, although both emphasise similar aspects of human nature.

Maslow’s life-long plan was to construct and write a comprehensive and systematic psychology and philosophy of human nature and society. For his world-view he used the humanistic approach which offered a new image of man and society. This was the general structure he worked for throughout a tough life which was full of anxiety, attacks of depressions and uncertainties, as he did not have the courage to express his intuitive feelings and visions to a sceptical scientific audience which demands proof or at least logical consistency. But what Maslow offered was not a definite elaborated psychological theory but a unique vision of human nature, which was the intuitive product of his inner experiences.

Sri Aurobindo’s main objective in life was to make a new level of consciousness possible on earth and to prepare the next stage of evolution. His whole life in Pondicherry was devoted to the confirmation, expansion and practical application of his spiritual vision. However, Sri Aurobindo was not trying to work out a mental solution for a technical problem, but attempting to transform the whole nature, to bring about a change in the very stuff of the individual’s inner and outer nature. The extreme difficulties he met originated from his attempt to apply spiritual knowledge practically in external life. Sri Aurobindo was not born with the supramental consciousness and he knew all about the hard realities of life, his life had been a battle, he was not living in a “lotus eating dreamland”.

Maslow, in the development of his ideas, started his early training in psychology within the materialistic framework of science, which was based on classical laboratory research methods. But he soon realised the limitations of these methods and started to concentrate on the higher potentials and image of man. In studying these higher dimensions, within himself as well as in others, he frequently adjusted his theory. The ‘farther reaches of human nature’ came to Maslow after his second heart attack, and he was able to make only a few forays into this area, expressing his findings in some tentative hypotheses.

Sri Aurobindo in the development of his ideas, on the other hand, started out from literature and revolutionary politics. In his early thirties, after beginning to practice Yoga in order to increase his capacities, he spent more than twelve years in relative seclusion, concentrating on his inner experiences. He used the traditional framework of Indian psychology and Yoga as a guide, and only afterwards started writing, producing a comprehensive outline of the structure of existence, based on his spiritual illuminations and intuitive visions. His psychological ideas were founded upon personal experience. After completing his main works at the age of 52, Sri Aurobindo tried to make it possible for others to reach similar levels of experience through his correspondence with the various spiritual seekers and practitioners (sadhaks) in his Ashram, and to work out all the details of the change in nature, trying out different methods with different sadhaks.

The second chapter deals with the sources of the two thinkers’ visions and ideas, and gives a general overview of various theories of personality relevant to them.
Personality can be understood only if one takes a comprehensive and all-inclusive view, and to fully understand what a particular psychologist means by the term personality it is essential to examine his overall views in regard to human nature.

From the starting-point of contemporary Western theories of personality, the humanistic and transpersonal theories are elaborated since they belong to the area of Maslow’s development; whereas Sri Aurobindo’s views can be seen in the context of the theories of personality in the Upanishads and the Sankhya and Yoga philosophies. According to the Indian theories of personality man is essentially a spiritual being, and each individual’s true identity lies outside the personality complex in the Jivatman, whereas Western theories, lacking such a spiritual foundation, regard the psychophysical self as the basic unit of personality. The Western theories make no distinction between soul, self and mind; the concept of a pure soul independent of all psychological foundation is still not admitted by humanistic and transpersonal psychology, and this fact makes a clear contrast to the Indian views on personality.

The third chapter examines Maslow’s referential framework and several of his ‘limited’ hypotheses. It explores a variety of specific topics and new issues related to personality, as Maslow did not develop a full-fledged and coherent theory of personality.

From his theory of motivation he gradually developed the notion of a hierarchy of basic and higher needs, the latter including the need for self-actualisation, Maslow’s main contribution to humanistic psychology.

In his study of what he termed ‘self-actualising individuals’ he encountered an aspect of psychological health that he called the ‘peak-experience’; he saw this as overlapping the need for self-actualisation and included it as an aspect of his growth and motivational theory.
In his latest developments Maslow moved on to consider transcendental aspects of the personality, the development of higher states of consciousness and what he termed inborn ‘metaneeds’, corresponding to a transpersonal reality.

By this time Maslow had gone beyond his earlier concept of self-actualisation and modified his conception of the peak-experience which he now considered a ‘plateau-experience’. Notwithstanding these modifications, Maslow’s later ‘Being Psychology’ remains firmly bound to a biological model. In his view, human nature is based on vitalistic tendencies in the biologically inspired organismic holism, and man’s spiritual dimensions are seen as merely the highest part of the individual’s ‘instinctoid ‘ nature.
Sri Aurobindo’s view of personality is a systematisation and elaboration of ancient Indian views supplemented by his own yogic explorations. In the ordinary personality he distinguishes the mental ego-sense from the individual Self. The appearance of the surface personality is a construct of the ego, whereas the true Self is not this created individuality but a universal being which is a portion of a supreme transcendental Spirit.

In the structure of human personality Sri Aurobindo distinguishes various planes of nature, and affirms that the total personality is not a single unit but composed of many entities: the surface being with its three aspects of body, life and mind; the subtle being, also manifesting these three levels; the inner psychic being; and the higher being-above in which is hidden the true source of individuality, the Jivatman.

Besides examining the aims of Integral Yoga, attention is paid to Sri Aurobindo’s conception of ‘self-realisation’ with its triple aspect of static, dynamic and integral realisation, and a brief explanation is given of the process of ‘transformation’, the central object of Integral Yoga through which integration of all the levels and aspects of the individual being becomes possible.
The action and influence of the ‘psychic being’ is seen as playing a crucial role in the development of an integral personality, and the concept of the psychic being is one of Sri Aurobindo’s main contributions to a dynamic and spiritual view of human personality.

In their respective visions, both these thinkers occupy themselves with a future utopian society, a utopia not based on illusive ideas but realisable by each and every individual.
In the fifth chapter both thinkers elaborate extensively upon the relation of the individual with the society, and the role that society plays in the development of the individual. For Sri Aurobindo this relation is based on a spiritual integration between individual and society, and for Maslow on synergetic principles. In Maslow’s synergetic concept the individual and society are of equal importance, whereas Sri Aurobindo considers the inner growth of the individual as the indispensable means for the improvement of the society, since it is through individuals that the collective spirit, or ‘group-soul’, organises its self-expression.

In Maslow’s ‘Eupsychian society’, which is based on biological hierarchical integration, the individual’s highest fulfilment consists in a complete self-identification with the society; whereas in Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual view this organic unity of society is a characteristic only of the external self of society. The human collectivity is not a mere mechanical combination, the truth of the individual and the collectivity and their true synthesis can be discovered only in a deeper unitary principle within the individual.

Maslow’s Eupsychian society functions somewhat like Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram experiment, that is, not on a basis of a new social scientific theory but rather on articles of faith with some grounding on facts, though not yet enough to convince those who cannot accept these articles of faith.
The concluding chapter presents a summary of the main trends of the present thesis, with a final confrontation of the two systems of thought.

Both thinkers are concerned with the development of the basic nature of man, and his essential goodness, though they differ radically in regard to their conceptions of what this basic nature consists of: Maslow’s biological organism stands poles apart from Sri Aurobindo’s view of the divine origin of man.
Both thinkers explore the inner being of the individual, and his potentials for growth; for both, the ordinary life is something the individual must surpass, not in any other world but in this life itself. In their methods, however, they differ widely: for Maslow the primary drive is towards the fulfilment of human potentials, whereas for Sri Aurobindo the primary motivation is transcendence of human limitations as a precondition for transformation and integration, and union with the Divine.

Both thinkers are also concerned with present-day humanity and the evolutionary crisis in which the human mind has achieved an enormous development in certain directions, while in others it can no longer find its way.
Maslow sees that almost all men devote the major part of their energies to physical needs, interests, and desires, rather than to the pursuit of high individual and large collective ideals. In his positive synthesis he demonstrates a trust in man as well as society.

For Sri Aurobindo, man’s highest potentialities lie beyond this present humanity, i.e., beyond Maslow’s humanism. Sri Aurobindo’s divine humanity is characterised by a movement towards an inner spiritual change and an outer transformation in which the ego may be replaced by the true Self; he sees the individual soul’s possession of true delight of being as the ultimate meaning of terrestrial existence. If humanity is to survive, this radical transformation of human nature is indispensable.
It is obvious that the two thinkers come very close regarding the inner realms of being, but ultimately it must be conceded that they are not on the same ‘wavelength’. Maslow, while moving towards the oriental heritage for inspiration and insight, did not lose his central focus on humanity; his ‘Transcendental Self’, the collective ego, remains human, whereas in Sri Aurobindo’s vision, the human is destined to transcend its limitations and become divine.

New Dimensions in the concept of Personality–A Critical Estimate

RESUME
We have come to the end of this brief and general survey of Abraham Maslow’s and Sri Aurobindo’s investigations into the concept and structure of personality, or levels of being, from the perspectives of Humanistic and Transpersonal psychology, and of Integral Yoga.

A major difficulty encountered when attempting a comparison between these two thinkers comes from the cultural distance between them, which has had to be taken into account throughout this study. In their efforts to explore the dynamism of life and the transcending of the being, the two thinkers started out from different backgrounds. Although both are integral thinkers, Sri Aurobindo’s vision is more coloured by inspiration from the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Gita, and presents a synthesis of many traditional Eastern spiritual disciplines (in which Jnana, Bhakti and Karma Yoga form a ‘triple way’); whereas Maslow’s synthesis takes as its starting point Western philosophies and psychologies such as Existentialism, Gestalt, and Freudian psychoanalysis, although he was familiar with various Eastern concepts. Moreover,the disciplines of their chosen methodologies are poles apart: Maslow is an empirical scientist and Sri Aurobindo is a yogic seer. However, when the two systems of thought are set side by side, some striking similarities as well as some fundamental differences and inherent contrasts between them can be analysed.

Another difficulty has been to arrange into a clear line of argument the rich material presented by these two thinkers; for both give us a various, complex and wide vision, which they each expound in an integral manner, interrelating each and every aspect of human personality. In this necessarily cursory study, some parts of their theories and visions have had to be left out; but the author has tried not to lose sight of the essence of Maslow’s and Sri Aurobindo’s views.

The present work is more in the nature of the exposition of the two visions as represented by A. Maslow and Sri Aurobindo; it does not try to claim any exclusivity regarding the superiority of the two views, as is magnificently expressed in the words of K. Stockhousen: “ No matter how strong man’s longing for the next stage of being may be, his fear of and resistance to opening up to this consciousness are equally violent…We know that only a few will manage, on the basis of their inner resources, to achieve freedom and superconsciousness. Let us not try to erect new systems against those we want to do away with because they are too restricted, aiming at excluding, suppressing and eliminating too much alternative thinking. Our concept must be so broad that we see ourselves and the whole world from above, allowing old systems to run down without replacing them by something new, claiming exclusivity.” (Towards a Cosmic Music)

This concluding chapter gives a brief critical and comparative review of the ideas of the two thinkers, and for the sake of clarity it has been divided into sections:

New Dimensions in the Concept of Personality
This section gives a comparison of Maslow’s and Sri Aurobindo’s views regarding specific concepts related to the various levels of being and the integration of personality.

Humanistic/Transpersonal Psychology versus Integral Yoga Psychology
Here an attempt is made to give a critical evaluation of the transpersonal viewpoint and an assessment of how it can be related with the psychology of Integral Yoga.

MASLOW’S CONTRIBUTION
The crisis of the present time can be attributed to a disequilibrium between mankind’s economical and technical progress with its attendant increasing possibilities for the control and manipulation of both nature and human life, and the neglect of other important elements of human existence which has led to an overemphasis on external living-conditions. All these circumstances have contributed to the present precarious situation of the human race.

Confronted with the multitude of problems that humanity is facing in the 20th century, Maslow was of the opinion that ‘by improving human nature we improve all, for we remove the principle causes of world disorder’. The root cause of these problems lies in ourselves, and only through a deeper understanding of our fellows and ourselves shall we become able to cope with the problems of modern life.
Maslow’s life was filled with humanitarian concern. He brought to the forefront the highest possibilities of human nature, by studying the most moral, ethical, saintly and psychologically healthy individuals he could trace, rather than psychologically average or sick people. In studying self-actualising individuals Maslow moved from the normative towards the descriptive, and in his later works he replaced the concept of self-actualisation by the more descriptive and objective concept of ‘fully human’. The quality of ‘humanness’ thus becomes a kind of quantitative concept ready for research purposes.

Maslow enlarged the behaviouristic/psychological concept of reality, to include not only nature but also man. Through imagination, self-awareness, introspection, and the intuition an individual can transcend the conditioned realm of nature. This modification of the humanistic concept of reality is best reflected by Maslow’s views on self-actualisation, which are based on a holistic, harmonising and integral character. Aware of the limitations and shortcomings of an almost wholly mechanistic scientific psychology, Maslow turned towards the oriental heritage for inspiration and insight. He created an interest in non-Western perspectives in psychology, with the hope of bridging some gaps in our knowledge of personality. This interest led to a degree of integration of ancient Indian psychological wisdom with the insights of Humanistic and Transpersonal psychology.

Like Sri Aurobindo, Maslow did not simply criticise but also outlined his own vision of a new psychology, by introducing a positive force to supplement Freudian pessimism and the determinism of the neo-Behaviourists. He visualised human nature as typified by naturally self-transcending, psychologically healthy people who seek for wider horizons, for the remote rather than the near and easily-graspable.

By suggesting a natural basis for religious, mystical and supernatural impulses in human beings, and ‘the democratisation of the soul’, Maslow reasserted man’s ownership of all his human potentials, thereby providing a foundation for bridging the dichotomy between religion and science. What he called the higher metaneeds, related to Being-values and spirituality, are, he considered, indispensable for a balanced growth of human personality. A person deprived of metaneeds and spiritual faith suffers from metapathology, which may manifest as loneliness, insecurity and purposelessness.

Maslow’s message appears particularly relevant in the artificial environment which prevails today, especially in westernised technological societies where contemporary man is deprived of access to his inner being.

Where Maslow and Sri Aurobindo meet
In the present era, the world is witnessing the influence of many radical changes in the mind of humanity. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, “The most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West or by a nobler pragmatism, guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge. The West never really succeeded in spiritualising itself and latterly it has been habituated almost exclusively to an action in the external governed by political and economic ideals and necessities…On the other hand the East, though it has allowed its spirituality to slumber too much in dead forms, has always be open to profound awakenings and preserves its spiritual capacity intact.

Therefore the hope of the world lies in the re-arousing in the East of the old spiritual practicality and large and profound vision and power of organisation under the insistent contact of the West and in the flooding out of the light of Asia on the Occident, no longer in forms that are now static, unadaptive, but in new forms, dynamic and effective.” (The Supramental Manifestation, p. 281.)

Maslow expresses similar views when he writes, “ Academic psychology is too exclusively Western. It needs to draw on Eastern sources as well. It turns too much to the objective, the public, the outer, the behavioral, and should learn more about the subjective, the private, the inner, the meditative. Introspection, thrown out as a technique, should be brought back into psychological research.” (Humanistic Viewpoints in Psychology, p. 30.)
Western psychology, although fully aware of the imperfect nature of man, has little to offer in helping humanity to evolve toward higher levels of being. As a modern social science, it approaches man from the outside and takes its stand on the periphery of existence. By itself it is not able to penetrate to the fundamental issues of man’s existence and the meaning of life, for it lacks the dimension of spiritual depth.

Maslow and Sri Aurobindo in their search for higher and deeper integration of human personality look at man in a different way, by studying the inner dimensions of human existence. For both thinkers, man is a never-finished product of evolution with endless potentialities for inner growth, and has the capacity to cultivate the psyche’s higher aspirations for a spiritual reality beyond the grasp of the pragmatic human intellect. Modern man, deprived of spiritual values, is suffering all the more from the suppression of spiritual urges which lie at the centre of the human psyche, for the spiritual dimension is as integral to the individual’s total personality as his bio-psychological nature.

Both thinkers discouraged a preoccupation with the individual’s imperfections, and gave greater importance to man’s possibilities and higher impulses. They share a clear-cut optimistic view of human destiny: man must learn to move to future realisations, and all that is good and helpful in the past must be integrated into the desired form for the future. Maslow’s theory of human motivation is based on belief in these human potentialities, and the need for self-actualisation is a logical consequence of these latent human potentials. He sees a natural tendency for growth in any individual, and like Sri Aurobindo, considers that the future of the self-actualising person is already prefigured in the form of ideals, hopes, aspirations and aims.

Maslow and Sri Aurobindo both brought the depths of inner reality out of the exclusive sphere of religion, and stressed the need for investigation of this internal reality. This mutual concern is elegantly expressed in a quotation from Swami Vivekananda:” After long searches here and there, in temples and churches, in earths and in heavens, at last you come back, completing the circle, to the place from where you started, to your own soul, and find that He for whom you have been seeking all over the world, for whom you have been weeping and praying in churches and temples, on whom you were looking as the mystery of all mysteries shrouded in the clouds, is nearest of the near, is your own self, the reality of your life, body and soul.” (Complete Works, vol. II, pp. 81-82.)
At present we are in the midst of a transitional period in which the old and the new being are mingled; the old continues to dominate ordinary life, yet a new or higher consciousness is quietly and slowly developing. That it is growing and working is experienced by various people who have given descriptions of their experiences which vary according to their respective cultural backgrounds. Maslow, for example, described the experience of self-transcendence beyond self-actualisation, whereas Sri Aurobindo refers to an integral and transformative experience.

Some Fundamental Differences
Despite these agreements there are many fundamental differences which may seem to outweigh some striking similarities between the views of Abraham Maslow and Sri Aurobindo.
In exploring man’s inner being, his potentials and future growth, both thinkers agree that the ordinary life is something one must pass beyond—not to any remote Heaven but in this earthly life itself. But the methods they recommend for achieving this differ widely. According to Sri Aurobindo, man’s main drive is towards the transcendence of his humanity; for Maslow it is human fulfilment. What Maslow conceives of as the ‘farther reaches of human nature’ is founded only on humanistic empirical science, whereas the basis of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga is essential spiritual.

Although these two thinkers are both concerned with the development of man’s basic nature and share a conviction of his essential goodness, they differ radically in their descriptions of what this basic nature is. Maslow considers man primarily as a biological organism, whereas Sri Aurobindo assumes a divine essence for man, sees man as a slowly evolving manifestation of the Divine.
Maslow was a strong adherent of reason, and the spiritual leanings expressed in his various concepts of human nature are only partly based on his own transpersonal experiences and were mainly derived from observing endlessly the various facets of human behaviour in others. Maslow’s God or divinity is based on the best and most remarkable aspects of human beings.

Sri Aurobindo’s views are likewise based on a detailed observation of his own experiences and on those of the many disciples he guided in their development, but they are integrated into a synthetic comprehensive word-view. He sees a divine dynamism that is capable of transforming human nature and creating a new world order. Maslow might share this view, but his visions lack cohesiveness and are therefore relatively less integral. As a scientist his inner views needed the approval of a rational verification.

For Sri Aurobindo, present-day Western psychology, which passes from one theory to another before the first is well-founded, is not a firm basis on which a metaphysical structure can be erected. His metaphysical psychology is based on a perception of man’s urge towards spirituality, to a spiritual perfection of the being, a divinisation of the mind, the heart and the very body, a Kingdom of God not only within us but also simultaneously in a collective human life.

Though Sri Aurobindo has not propounded a psychological system as a separate body of knowledge, in the course of his writings he does give a very complete view of human mind and personality. For him, man is not merely a biological and psychological being, but a spiritual being too. His central message is based on the assertion of an evolutionary development of man as we know him into a higher divine man, with the consequent eventual emergence of a race of gnostic beings, representing the fulfilment of the potentialities of the human race. For him, growth does not mean only an improvement of the surface characteristics, but also implies development of the inner life. No true development of the individual is possible without an awakening of the inner being. It is this inner being which stands at the core of an integral personality. Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga is a disciplined, methodical effort towards the integral self-realisation of unity between the individual, the universal and transcendent selves. This dynamic truth would be expressed by the fullest actualisation of the potentialities of the individual human personality through the union of human and divine in life.

Maslow did not cultivate a full-blown new theory, but instead elaborated a universal framework of reference and a series of limited propositions and hypotheses from which a new theory could be developed later on. This in sharp contrast with Sri Aurobindo’s integral theory. His exposition of the nature of being is yet not widely used in transpersonal psychology and is often misinterpreted.

The Integral Personality
The study of personality deals with and explores the complex nature of man, and strives to know the individual’s being in all its various aspects, to uncover his multiplicity, and at the same time—deriving his uniqueness from the oneness of being—requires the Self-knowledge and integration of the higher and deeper levels of being.

Maslow’s study of personality is based on the holistic-dynamic or organismic method according to which there must be a preliminary understanding of the total organism before its parts can be studied.
He felt that man’s inner personality creates a tendency to look within and has a dynamic force of its own, pressing for uninhibited expression. But this impulse to look within for the real self is for Maslow a kind of ‘subjective biology’, which compels us to look at the personality as a biological entity, comprised of constitutional, temperamental, physiological, and biochemical needs and capacities.

Sri Aurobindo expresses his scepticism about the biological representation of the human personality as follows: “Since the whole of our existence is mechanical, physical and bounded by the biological phenomenon of a brief living consciousness and man is a creature and instrument of material energy, the spiritual self-evolution of Yoga can be only a delusion, hallucination, abnormal state of mind, or self-hypnosis.” (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 724.)

Sri Aurobindo takes the term ‘personality’ in relation to the human ego-self to mean something limited, external and separative. It is only a temporary formation, a mask, not the true individual. Behind every ego stands the true Self, the Jivatman, which is the divine individuality. He does not discard the concept of personality but rather extends it, so that loss of the ego means entering into the true individuality. For Sri Aurobindo the highest individual experience is of the persistent spiritual truth of personality; this means that ultimately the entire individuality can be spiritualised, and this process of spiritual growth is one of transformation through integration. It is only through the totally-integrated individual, who has purified his nature to the point of having transcended his individual personality, that the Supermind can act.

Though Sri Aurobindo emphasises the spiritual essence of individuality, he has nowhere denied the humanistic view of man, but instead indicates the deeper and higher foundations of man rather than the merely intellectual and sentimental aspects of the human personality.

He attaches great importance to man’s existence in the world and to the fulfilment of the individual’s entire being, of his empirical as well as spiritual personality. However, it is the spiritual foundation that directs the individual to his highest fulfilment and development of the human personality. Body and mind are only temporary formations, for in the course of evolution they will be transformed. A radical change in the mental, vital and physical aspects of man’s being is necessary to attain a perfect integration of the personality.

Maslow’s Integral Personality: Maslow’s view of the integration of personality is based on basic-need gratification. He insists that the higher nature of man develops only on the basis if the lower, although eventually, when it is well established, it may become relatively independent of the lower needs. Maslow gives equal value to the lower nature of man, his ‘creatureliness’, and his higher nature, his god-likeness impulses; he does not see them as antagonistic and intrinsically different in nature. Nor does he want to renounce the lower; both aspects are simultaneously defining characteristics of human nature, and the growth impulse impels the individual forward towards wholeness and uniqueness of self, and towards the full functioning of all his capacities. The integral person is what Maslow calls the healthy personality, and he considers that a healthy growth, a healthy process of becoming, clears the way for the experience of integral moments of Being, which in turn stimulate a further progress of becoming. Thus, in Maslow’s view of the integral personality, Being and Becoming are not opposed to each other. In his theory, the realm of Being is integrated in the realm of Deficiency: The B-realm rests fully on the D-realm, the former must be seen through the latter; only in this way can the D-realm be first gratified and then transcended.

In Maslow’s final formulation of his concepts of the hierarchy of needs, he considered the seeking for transcendence as the highest aim in human life—even above self-actualisation. The healthy personality is engaged in a lifelong process of transcending needs, and the summit of integration is reached when the metaneeds are fully developed and expressed.
The concept of gratification itself is transcended only at the level of meta-motivation, and true integration therefore takes place only in the B-realm.

Sri Aurobindo’s Integration of Personality; At the very heart of Integral Yoga psychology lies the concept of the psychic being, the integrating principle of the total personality. If Sri Aurobindo’s ideas were to be expressed in Maslow’s terminology, it might be said that he considers that the D-realm needs to be transformed by the psychic, without accepting that it needs gratification before it can be transcended; or that he would deal with the D-realm in terms of control and purification rather than of gratification. Integration for Sri Aurobindo means “ a harmonisation of the conflicting parts of the personality brought about by the control and the working of a higher principle, a transformation more or less complete so as to admit of a total changed working of the whole being and nature”. (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 282.) Integrating the personality implies the reconciliation of the disparate parts of the being, the conscious and the unconscious parts, but also the concealed subliminal and superconscious parts of the being. This integration or harmonisation of the personality cannot be achieved by any outward rearrangements, but only from within by the action of the integrative principle, which Sri Aurobindo calls the psychic being, the developing psychic individuality.

The psychic being is the spiritual essence of man, the soul as it develops during his evolution. This psychic being should not be confused with the ego or ‘surface desire-soul’, which is at work in our vital cravings and emotional desires. The ego is the centre of the surface being and therefore a centre of inferior coordination, whereas the psychic being is the centre of the inner being and the true integrating and unifying principle. This psychic being, an essential potentiality in man, is not the same as Maslow’s integrating principle, which is external in character and based on a superficial association between various parts. In Sri Aurobindo’s view, development of the integral personality involves development of the unifying psychic being, as all the different aspects of personality must find their true position and role around this psychic centre. It has the double work of inner purification and organisation or integration of the outer instruments. It prepares and opens each plane of the being, so as to make them ready for union with the Divine; in those parts of the individual being where the ego maintains too strong a grip the application of the divine principle becomes difficult or seems impossible.
The two thinkers vary widely regarding the principle of integration.

Maslow uses the word transcendence in a hierarchical-integrative way which implies that the higher is built upon and therefore includes the lower. But he appears unclear about the details of this integrated hierarchy. Since development of the higher levels is dependent upon continued gratification of the lower rungs, the latter cannot disappear but continue to exist in a non-active state. How far this inactive state is able to be integrated remains an unanswered question.

For Sri Aurobindo the process of integration is ‘a taking up of what has already been evolved into each higher grade as it is reached.’ And the higher grades are latent in the lower grades: it would not be possible for the lower to evolve into the higher unless the potentiality of the higher were already inherent within it; the lower levels of development contain within themselves the essential principle of that which exceeds them.

In Maslow’s description of the process of integration, which is based on synthesis, there is no such process: the higher is not already contained in the lower and his synthetical process of integration appears to be only partial.

Unlike Maslow’s concept of need gratification, for Sri Aurobindo diverse principles do not unite on their original level after gratification, but are first transformed and then enter into a greater synthesis. In this way integration means the unification of each part of the being around the central being. The first step of the work of transformation is thus the awakening of one’s psychic Being. In the psychic transformation all the parts of the individual Prakriti and Purusha become organised around the psychic. This is the first transformation.

On that must follow the spiritual change, which implies the organisation of all the parts of the being around the spiritual Self; the descent of a higher Light, Force, Bliss, Purity into the whole being.

Last, there must take place the supramental transformation in which the whole of human nature is transformed into the image of the Divine, a transformation of the inner, higher as well as the outer ways of the being, the total transformation including the inconscient parts of mind, life and body. In the supramental transformation the individual Self becomes a centre of the working of the universal and Transcendental Spirit. What Sri Aurobindo terms ‘integral transformation’ is not merely a growth from lower to higher levels, but also implies the uplifting and transformation of the lower levels so that they become fit instruments of expression for the latter, and all movements of the being come into harmony with the highest achieved level of development. When a lower level is taken up by a higher one, nothing is destroyed or lost, but the lower is modified and infused by the higher. This means an ascent through descent: the higher descends into the lower, transforms it completely so that the lower ascends into the higher.

Through the type of mental integration described by Maslow, a certain mastery or control over the lower levels can be achieved; but mastery is not the same as transformation; the changes which can be brought about are not sufficient to integrate the whole being. Only when all the different parts of the being are under the control of the central psychic individuality does a full integration of all the parts of the being become possible.

Conclusion
Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga does not aim only at the integration of the individual personality, but also at its transformation, a transformation which brings about a totally changed working of the whole being and nature. He does not stop short at the stage represented by Maslow’s term ‘self-actualisation’, but proceeds further until man reaches the divine personality. The turning of all powers of human existence into a means of reaching and then expressing the Divine is the main principle of Integral Yoga. Its first aim therefore is for the individual to grow into the divine being, through the central psychic being.

Sri Aurobindo’s conception of an evolving psychic being, essentially divine, which stands behind the manifestation of the individual personality, is too occult a notion for Maslow to accept, or to receive any verification from his experimental-empirical psychology.